FRANKFURT AM MAIN, (MILLAT+APP/AFP) – Confidence
among investors in Europe’s largest economy, Germany, picked up in January, a closely-watched survey showed Tuesday, defying political uncertainty across the eurozone.
After plateauing in December, the ZEW institute’s investor confidence
index increased 2.8 points to 16.6 points in January.
But analysts surveyed by Factset had predicted an even more robust
increase to 18.8 points.
“The slight increase is mainly due to an improvement in eurozone
economies,” ZEW head Achim Wambach said in a statement, “and can also be seen as a leap of faith for 2017.”
Economic observers were met with unexpectedly positive figures for
German gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 and for industrial production across the eurozone in November last week, Wambach noted.
At 1.9 percent, the German economy grew at its fastest rate since
2011 last year, data released last week showed.
The ZEW survey’s sub-index measuring sentiment about the present
state of the German economy matched that positive surprise, reaching its highest level since July 2011.
Meanwhile, confidence about both the present state and future outlook
for the eurozone economy as a whole improved markedly.
January’s reading “confirms that optimism about the German economy is
gradually returning despite fears about the political situation elsewhere in
the eurozone,” analyst Jennifer McKeown of Capital Economics said.